buzzzzzzzzzz new adventure

[TAHOE]

Just stumbled across this thread, I'll have to go back and read from the beginning when I get time.
I am just starting out, planning on 2 hives this year then go from there next year if things go well this year.

 

[addy1]

I am just starting out, planning on 2 hives this year

Neat! Two is a good number to start with. We started with two nucs, it was a bit overwhelming. Probably dind't help that my honey was having open heart surgery the day our nucs arrived. We had to have a neighbor install them for us. He could not do much all summer, at least we only had two to worry about.

Ask any ??'s you want, bee keeps all do it a bit different, just like with ponds.

 

[TAHOE]

I have to say thank goodness for youtube, been watching hours and hours of videos, but I know I have only scratched the surface. I did go to a new bee keeper training seminar back in March, it was really helpful in learning the basics and hearing some common sense practical management practices from locals.

I bought my first complete kit as a 10 frame. I have a nuc coming on April 30 and that will be my first ever hive. I plan on getting another base kit and hopefully be able to get a mail order package by end of May and get that one up and running also.

One thing I may do is run 10 frame deeps and then run 8 frame supers for honey next year after I get them established and hopefully make through next winter. My ole back may not be able to handle a 10 frame super full of honey or I will have to maybe just pull frame of honey vs pulling entire box....but that's a next year worry.

I am also really looking into the organic/no chemical type bee raising. I know a lot of people are using essential oils for health and mite control, but some like Michael Bush even thinks that disrupts the bees normal microcosm and natural biological systems. Don't want to lose my bees, but don't want to hammer them with a bunch of chemicals, just have to see what works for me I guess.

I am also interested in the top bar hives. I know that will be a year or two down the road once I learn some more, but would be neat to try one and see how it goes. I could make it a winter build project in the basement.

 

[addy1]

Great! This time of year you shouldn't need to feed them unless this darn cold keeps going. Or feed them lightly. We had our first nuc swarm fed them too much. No clue what we were doing, even after going to training.

We have ours with one 10 frame deep, two mediums for the brood. We use the 10 frames for the honey supers, I have all set up with 9 frame spacers, which you can't use until the frames are built out.

A lot of the time we pull out a frame at a time, if we find a fully capped we pull , extract if we have enough frames to extract, then put it right back to be filled again.

We use oxalic acid to treat for the mites, it is found in honey naturally, plus a lot of veggies.
We were not on top of them when we started, loss a hive or two a winter to mites, even with staying on top of treating we tend to lose a hive every winter. Mites are horrible, they wear the hive down. It is so sad to open the hive and find nothing but dead bees.

I know nothing about top bar hives. Except we are not doing them lol

 

[TAHOE]

Great! This time of year you shouldn't need to feed them unless this darn cold keeps going. Or feed them lightly. We had our first nuc swarm fed them too much. No clue what we were doing, even after going to training.

Are you talking feeding pollen or sugar? Most "experts" in my area are saying to keep sugar water/sugar on them pretty much all year round, they will only eat as they need.
I know to watch the pollen feedings as it promotes a lot of brood production, told not to do that during late fall/winter or during the nectar/pollen flow.

We use oxalic acid to treat for the mites, it is found in honey naturally, plus a lot of veggies.
We were not on top of them when we started, loss a hive or two a winter to mites, even with staying on top of treating we tend to lose a hive every winter. Mites are horrible, they wear the hive down. It is so sad to open the hive and find nothing but dead bees.

I will try to stay on the mites, I know they are a big issue. I found a guy on youtube who is only about 2 hrs away, seems he knows what he is doing. I think it's helpful seeing people in your area and what works for them. I watch people down south and and it seems they have different issues due to climate/location, I don't think we have the issue of the hive beetles like they do.

I know nothing about top bar hives. Except we are not doing them lol

They are horizontal hives not vertical like the "normal" langstroth hives.They are a different design. As I said, that might be a year or two and just a "cause I think they are neat" type project.


Thanks for replies.

 

[addy1]

Are you talking feeding pollen or sugar? Most "experts" in my area are saying to keep sugar water/sugar on them pretty much all year round, they will only eat as they need.
I know to watch the pollen feedings as it promotes a lot of brood production, told not to do that during late fall/winter or during the nectar/pollen flow.

We feed ours in the fall/winter, sugar blocks, they eat if they run out of capped honey. We can have warm winters.

Spring a bit of 1/1 to get some capped honey back into the hives before nectar flow. Really depends on the winter weather.

During nectar flow nothing, ow you are harvesting sugar water honey. Our nectar flow is only an intense 6-8 weeks, ends near the end of June. We do get a bit of fall flow.

After harvest, July or so, 1/1-2 sugar water every other week to build them back up after you take their excess honey. If you feed to much they will build up too much and swarm.

Sept/Oct 2/1 to help them build up their capped honey for winter.

Hardly ever feed pollen, we have enough natural to not need to feed.

 

[addy1]

They are horizontal hives not vertical like the "normal" langstroth hives.They are a different design. As I said, that might be a year or two and just a "cause I think they are neat" type project.

I know what they are, just have never used them. You need to crush and strain the honey, you lose all the drawn comb. I save all the drawn comb for the next nectar season, gives the hives a head start.

 

[addy1]

I will try to stay on the mites, I know they are a big issue.

Have you heard of beesource.com world wide bee keepers. Great base of info.

There is a lot of threads about no treatment of mites. I don't, in my few years of beekeeping, see a way to keep them alive without treating. They die over winter if you don't, even die over winter if you do.

 

[TAHOE]

Have you heard of beesource.com world wide bee keepers. Great base of info.

There is a lot of threads about no treatment of mites. I don't, in my few years of beekeeping, see a way to keep them alive without treating. They die over winter if you don't, even die over winter if you do.

I've been on it a little, no much though, been spending most of my research time watching or mostly listening to youtube videos. I can throw my earbuds in and listen to a video while doing other things. I really like the Fat Bee man

I hadn't thought of the comb with top bar system. I did see a video of a guy who actually did a square box top bar and made foundation frames for it. He screwed up though and killed his colony over winter due to how he put his lid on and moisture killed them. It looks to work good though, but that's just a side hive if I would ever go that route, need to learn how to manage vertical hives first.

I'm still trying to learn, first year will be building the colony then I'll concentrate on building honey next year. We get several large blooms of stuff in our area, I will have to feed for a few weeks when I get my nuc, but then we get good nector till June then the fall stuff. I know July and August maybe lean times. Thankfully my bees will be sitting near a forest of honey locust, that should make for some good honey next year along with mass amounts of honey suckle. Not sure what fall will bring, I do have a farm up the road with soybeans and alfalfa. I personally like the fall honeys though, dark with a little kick.

Do you use queen excluders between deeps and honey supers?

thanks

 

[addy1]

mass amounts of honey suckle

Not good for bees, the long tongue bees do honey suckle, not honey bees.

forest of honey locust,

Here blooms around 5/15, blooms for 10 plus minus days then done. One bad storm wipes it out.

Do you use queen excluders between deeps and honey supers?

Yes got tired of the queens that chimneyeed.

 

[TAHOE]

Got my first nuc set up last night. I couldn't pick up nuc over weekend, so I dropped my hive of last week and they had nuc in side my hive, ready to go. I just had to set hive on stand, remove cover and put in feeders and close up.
My other package will be arriving on Thursday.

 

[addy1]

Nice! We started with nucs, added packages, now grow our own. That was very nice of them to set it up for you. Usually, here, you are on your own. Don't pick up on x day it is gone. One nuc we bought was just one frame of bees, very poor pattern, did not do well at all. $145 bucks down the drain.

 

[TAHOE]

Both hives now set up. The nuc is running pretty well although I am worried they maybe getting honey bound. I moved the honey frames out a frame and inserted a new frame that they had already started drawing out. They are bringing in a lot of pollen. Alot of new brood has hatched, but it appears the old cells are being fill with honey, I dunno. Still new at figuring out what I am seeing. I also got hive beetles with this nuc, ugh!

The packaged is doing really well, in 4 days the queen is loose and they have drawn out 3 frames already. Man are they sucking down the sugar water right now, but that's fine for making the comb and brood. There are a few cells of pollen I saw so there is some foraging going on.

 

[addy1]

@TAHOE

We are finally done harvesting honey.

Did a deeper inspection of the hives, figured one was queenless, no brood, back filling the brood chamber with nectar. Added some eggs so they would grow a queen.

The next day we found the new mated queen under the screened bottom board but on top of the slide out, an area of around 1/2 inch wide. I was pulling it out to clean, found brood and stopped. There were a ton of bees, a bit of drawn comb, some brood. The red line is around the brood.

We emptied a brood box, tore the screen off the bottom board and then shook the bees into brood box. We did not find any bees below the hive once done, it appeared we managed to get all the bees into the brood box, did not see the queen. We will look for her or eggs in the next few days.

They always surprise you.

 

[addy1]

The bees love the yellow snow flake, they land on the pads to sip water, and the pot with the kitty litter and sweet flag. Algae, warm pond smelling pond water. Good smelling to the bees.